"Music for me was like
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InterviewsAustralian Tour 2001 -Kerry O'Brien of ABC TVKerry O'Brien of ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) TV interviewed Nana Mouskouri on the 7.30 Report on 12th March, 2001.Kerry - Kerry: Nana Mouskouri, after 200 million records sold, 1,300 plus songs, 40 odd years of singing, why do you keep going? Nana: Because I was born a singer and singing for me is expressing myself. I need to do that and my energy to sing, I get it from my singing. Singing was not a reason to make a living. This is the only thing I wanted to do and I think also, singing, believing in life and loving life and so making life visible by singing. Kerry: You were quoted may be 25 or 26 years ago as saying "For Greek people, happiness is very close to sadness. There is no middle way." Nana: Yes. Kerry: I know that is a very long time ago, but if you remember why you said it, what did you mean by that? Nana: Greek people, they are extremes - either they are very happy, or they are very, very sad. They show it. There is no middle way for expression for the Greeks. Either they break something or they cry themselves. But I do believe that in life if you haven't learnt about sadness, you cannot appreciate happiness. Kerry: You have seen an amazing sweep of history close up. You were still a small child when Greece was occupied by the Germans, by Nazi Germany. One very quick memory of that time - of that impressionistic time for you as a child. Nana: When you are 5 years old and they take all the men from the neighbourhood outside and they ask them if they have seen some revolutionaries, and then if they don't answer, you see them killing them. And you are a child and they beat you to get out of their way. These things you don't forget. Kerry: What strong memory do you have of the collapse of communism - you saw the Berlin Wall go up, you saw the Berlin Wall come down. Nana: The Berlin Wall go down - that was the most wonderful thing that could happen, absolutely. I celebrated with everybody in Berlin for that day when the Wall was down. For me it was a wonderful thing that the doors opened because I saw the Wall. You know, in '62 in Germany, I had my first success and I saw it building. I remember I was going from one side and looking to the other side because there was a Wall there and you could see brothers and sisters separated and you think, this thing cannot exist, but it did exist. So with my songs I tried to prove that there is love, and this is what made me not believe in politics. Kerry: You said, before you went into politics you were suspicious of politics really. Nana: Yes! Kerry: Having seen it from the inside you still don't like politics? Nana: I am more suspicious now than I was before, but unfortunately the world needs the politicians. But wherever you turn, there is always something wrong with the politicians and you know, this I don't understand - I cannot understand. They have everything they need to save the world and they don't save it - which means, if they save the world, there will not be any reason for them to be politicians. (Kerry & Nana both laugh heartily). Kerry: That is very cynical. Nana: It is cynical, but this is it. If you know you can save lives and you don't do it. I don't believe this. Kerry: You've outsold Striesand and Madonna put together, you've shared the stage with some of the great artists from Harry Belafonte to Bob Dylan. Who amongst them all have been your real heroes in the whole world of music? Nana: Oh! My heroes have been a lot of people, of course. First of all my first hero was a great Greek poet - his name was Nikos Gatsos. He lived until a few years ago. He was a wonderful philosopher. He taught me to search for a certain truth in what I am doing in life. And then my heroes are people like Quincy Jones or Harry Belafonte who really introduced me on stage in my early years. Bob Dylan with his material - although nobody would believe that I could be a singer who could really sing his music. Kerry: I think you've said that for you Dylan was your favourite composer. Nana: Yes, he was. He was, because in the '60s when I started really, when I heard his first songs, he really was answering certain questions that I had all my life been asking myself, and all of a sudden there was a poet really situating all those questions. Kerry: As you sit in the rocker, in your twilight years, which are obviously going to be some time off, what will be the abiding memories in your life that you will treasure the most? Nana: Oh, there are so many. I appreciate everything. I think the first time of everything. As I said, yes, to have met my friends who gave me the first songs which was the first food in my soul for me, it was in Greece, of course. But then there were wonderful moments when I was singing for the first time in the Olympia Theatre and I was pregnant with my son, which was very, very strange for a singer. Or when I was singing for Eurovision and I had wonderful friends like Yvonne Littlewood to work with who just asked me after a while to do a television series, and this was the beginning for me. There are always beginnings for me that are wonderful - the Albert Hall, Harry, the first time on stage or the Carnegie Hall. There are so many - I think I was very spoilt in my life. And I can say, one of the most wonderful memories in my life was when I sang at the Opera House here, in Sydney. I will never forget that. It is one of the most beautiful Houses I have ever sung in my life and the audience was wonderful. The first time I came it was in 1974. Kerry: That will be no different this time. Nana Mouskouri, thanks for talking with us. Nana: Thank you. |